@aerospace, I'm a newbie to this stuff. It was super easy to setup. I did the set up this morning like in 10 minutes, than ran out the door to get oil changed in my car . While I was waiting, I tested it on 3g and it worked. I got a hauppauge 1950 tuner from amazon approx $140. I attached splitter on my cable, one end to my internet modem and other to the turner. attached the USB from tuner to pc. download orb software to PC, set up channels. while I was waiting at the gas station, i downloaded the orb free app to my iphone, and it worked. Watch CNN while I waited. I'm still learning what it all can do, it's got options for webcam, music and data files. hauppauge has a scheduler so maybe it can record, but I'm not sure yet. I'm happy I can watch tv at work now.

It is portable, Orb works over 3G. The reason you might read otherwise is that 1) it started off wifi-only before adding 3G and 2) about a little over a week ago there were some AT&T related connection problems that have since been resolved.

I'm using it as a stopgap until Slingplayer gets released. Unfortunately it's Windows only for live TV at the moment, there's a Mac version in development (can be downloaded from their support forum) that doesn't support the function yet. You also will probably need a usb-irt blaster (another $50) to change channels, the Hauppage won't do it on its own. You also need to keep your computer on when out. It can supposedly record shows to your hard drive, but the one time I tried I didn't end up having enough space on my Windows bootcamp partition.

My experience overall - a PITA to set up but extremely cool when it's finally working. At this point though with just two months left till submission I'd probably advise you to just wait it out and use the money you save for a Slingbox (which will give you DVR access).

The Orb app itself is definitely worth downloading btw, it can play files from video formats NOT supported on the iPhone like .avi.

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